Pippi and the Day of the Dead
by Pre-Animation Man
Summary: Pippi tells a story about a Holiday in Mexico


When I woke up from my nap, I was in the graveyard.

But I was not scared. Almost my whole family was there with me. Everyone except my abuela, my grandmother, and Captain, my baby brother. They were buried here. My aunt and uncle were missing, too. They lived in the next village and hadn't arrived yet.

It was Captain we were honoring that night. My brother died when he was just a few months old, not big enough to do anything besides laugh and cry and play with a few toys.

"We -will honor his spirit on the first of Los Día de Muertos, 'the Days of the Dead,'" my mother told me all year. "That is the night called los pequeños, 'the little ones,' are remembered. Perhaps Captain will give us asign, to let us know all is well."

In the market I had just enough money to buy one calqvera deazucar—a sugar-candy skull—with Captain's name on it. Now I set it by Captain's grave, with the other offerings.

If I lived in the United States, I, Pippi Longstocking, would not be in a graveyard tonight. I would be out trick-or-treating on Halloween, with enough money to buy lots of candy and a fancy costume.

I drank another cup of hot chocolate and tried to stay awake. I wrapped my serape tighter around me.

My father was lighting a black beeswax candle. It lit up our offerings for Captain—an ear of corn, his favorite toys, a piece of chocolate, many white flowers, and a small Pan de los muertos, "Bread of the Dead."

"We have brought our offerings to you, Captain," he said softly. "Come and be pleased to receive the soul of all that we have."

It wasn't much. Our family was very poor.

Suddenly the candle blew out. No one spoke at first. Was it magic? Was my brother sending us a sign? Or was it the wind?

We sat there till morning, surrounded by the sweet smell of incense, talking softly and remembering Captain.

The next day was the second of the Days of the Dead.

"Today we honor our ancestors," my mother reminded me. "Your abuela."

In the morning, I helped to clean grandmother's grave and decorate it with wreaths of mari golds, the flower of the dead. We set oranges, sweet pumpkin, peanuts, and a photograph of my abuela on an embroidered tablecloth.

In the afternoon, I went back to our house to help my mother prepare grandmother's favorite foods—tortillas with blue corn, tamale swrapped in banana leaves, and mole, a chicken in a sauce of chocolate and chiles.

"I wish your aunt and uncle would hurry," my mother said. "They say that if you are away from home on the Days of the Dead, you might run into returning souls on the lonely roads."

"Is that really true?" I asked her, but she just smiled.

Soon my aunt and uncle did arrive, safely.

They took me to the market with them to buy more Pan de los muertos. Bakery shelves bulged with round loaves of the special bread, glistening with reddish purple or lemon yellow glazes. Some smelled like licorice, some like cinnamon. Bakers had been working night and day for weeks, kneading, shaping, baking.

In the candy stores, piles of sugar skulls grinned at us. Bits of colored foil on fancy candies twinkled in the sun. Street vendors sold candles, bunches of fragrant herbs, wildflowers of every color, the spiciest foods and the sweetest drinks.

I held my aunt's hand tighter.

My favorite things in the market were the toys. Skeleton puppets that danced on sticks in the wind, brightly decorated masks to scare your friends with, toy coffins with skeletons that popped out when you pulled a string, skeleton earrings and necktie pins that looked like toys. Gold and silver flakes on everything, glittering in the sun.

I let go of my aunt's hand and ran to look at the tiny dolls. They had garbanzo beans for heads and little skeleton bodies, doing almost everything you can think of—taking a bath, getting married, fighting a bull, even marching in a funeral procession. My uncle bought a skeleton doll playing guitar, to set on my grandmother's grave—she had loved to play the guitar.

I had no money to buy anything, but I loved to look.

Then it was time to get back to the graveyard.

As the darkness fell, we lit candles and began keeping vigil.

My father told me what to say. "We miss you, abuela," I said softly. "We have brought our offerings. Come and be pleased to receive the soul of what the land has given us."

A grasshopper flitted among the offerings. Perhaps it was magic! They say the souls of the dead inhale the tastes of their feast by way of grasshoppers or moths. Perhaps grandmother was letting us know she was pleased.

I fell asleep for a while, and when I awoke the fiesta had begun.

After a certain time, they say, the spirits of the dead go away. It is we, the living, who actually get to eat the food!

Just as the day had sparkled with colored ribbons, tissue-paper decorations, bright flowers, now the night sparkled with black-and-yellow candles and fireworks. Laughing faces loomed all around. People visited, prayed, gossiped—like a big family reunion.

I think the children had the most fun. Perhaps not as much fun as Halloween in the United States, but we were excited to be up so late, excited just to be out of school during these special days.

A group of us performed la danza de los esqueletos, "the dance of the skeletons," with jerky movements skeletons might make. Others told ghost stories, especially about spirits who take ghastly revenge on relatives who don't honor them properly on the Days of the Dead.

As much fun as I was having, I finally did doze off. My father had to carry me home in his arms the next morning, as we all went back to our little adobe house.

Falling asleep in my own bed, I heard my family begin planning the next year's celebration of Los Día de Muertos.

But by the time of the next year's Days of the Dead, something sad had happened.

No, no one else in our family had died. But my mother and father had gone North, to the United States, leaving us children with my aunt anduncle.

I missed my father and mother fiercely. Sometimes I cried.

Not long after that year's celebration in the graveyard, my parents sent word through friends that they had found a place to live. They sent word that they had found jobs, first my mother, then my father. Then they sent another kind of message.

They were coming home to fetch us children. We were all going to live in the United States. My aunt and uncle were coming, too. We would all be together again. We would be so much richer than we were in Mexico.

And I, Pippi Longstocking, would celebrate Halloween now. I began thinking of costumes already, and of the mountains of sugary candy...

Still, when I came home from enjoying my first American Halloween, there was something bothering me.

"But what about Captain? And abuttal" I asked my mother.

"Do you miss them?" she asked.

"We have left their spirits behind," I explained. "No one will honor them anymore on the Days of the Dead. They will be so sad."

My mother smiled. "We cannot be with them at their graves," she agreed, "but we can still honor them."

"How?" I asked.

The next night my parents showed me how.

In our apartment, we set up a small of renda, or altar. On it we placed the photograph of my grandmother, my brother's favorite toys, and a bowl of marigolds. My mother baked her own Pan de Los Muertos, and this went on the altar, too.

All night we kept vigil. Before I fell asleep, I looked all around at my family.

And it was magic, the most magic thing of all.


End file.
